Open Source compatibility layer for Windows 9x

Category: Releases

This is a maintenance release to allow running the recently released official Mozilla Firefox 8.0 build.
Greets to aceman and felicitas for discovering the nature of the problem which prevented it from working.
What is not working yet: recently visited addresses, history and bookmarks.

KernelEx enters the dark world of VMM and kernel drivers.
In this release KernelEx doesn’t make any modifications to system files on disk.
Instead all patching is done on-the-fly in memory, while the system is performing the startup via a specialized driver.

Please report if you find any problems with copy protection-engines – like SecuROM, SafeDisc etc. that you didn’t have in v4.5.1.

What’s new:

Added KernelEx Virtual Device (VKrnlEx.vxd) project which makes modification of kernel32.dll file on disk unnecessary by patching the image directly in memory from kernel space before the shell starts

Implemented a fix for a crash occuring when accessing a locked file through file mapping object

Some programs shouldn’t complain about not having admin privileges anymore

Sorry for long wait folks. Unfortunately I have to confirm what some of you might have already suspected. The development of KernelEx has stalled. The release you see here is an almost unmodified version from February. I have decided to finally release it so that the work which has been done is not completely lost and so that you could benefit from it.

This is mainly a bug fix release with an addition of new feature for developers who want to hack around KernelEx and Windows APIs.
The update brings mainly fixes for Opera 11 and GTK application users but as usual the fixes might also help other applications.
Developers can now experiment with monitoring or filtering APIs on-the-fly in single applications without affecting the entire system.

The wait is finally over. KernelEx 4.5 has now gone final, which means this is the new stable release.
Because of the stability fixes it is a recommended update for 4.5 beta and RC users.

Check out our new Wiki. The wiki, and in particular its compatibility database requires your help to grow into something bigger and more useful. After free registration anyone can add new entries, but new users will be required to enter captcha code on every edit, to reduce spam problem.

What’s new:

Reworked installer (should be more compatible with kernel32 updates)

New welcome screen

Fixed stability of extended TLS code

Fixed hang issues with printers

Added Windows Installer compatibility database for MSI files patching

Apps fixed / now working:

Fixed: Foxit Reader 3.1 drag-and-drop crash

Fixed: Qt 4.6+ hotkey issues

Fixed: Opera 11 ‘about:’ pages

Fixed: Firefox displaying file save dialog twice

Fixed: caret not showing on some configurations (Opera)

Now working: Google Earth 5.2 (6.0 beta experimentally)

This release includes new feature to ease installation of MSI format packages that contain a check for Windows NT system.
This feature uses a database which means it won’t magically work for all MSI files at once, it rather needs adding an entry for each and every MSI file.
Currently the database includes entries for Microsoft Word Viewer 2003, Microsoft Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office 2007 File Format Converters, Google Earth 5.1, 5.2 and Adobe Reader 7.0 (all english versions only!).